The Galapagos, one of the most unique environments on earth – a place where you can actually see living evidence of the process of evolution with your own eyes.
This was one part of our trip we had planned in advance and we were all looking forward to it. We had five days on board a boat to tour the islands, it was going to be fun and we were ready to make te most of it. Melody was particularly exited as it was her 7th birthday whilst on our voyage.
It was incredible and fantastic and all those other words people use to describe this place. Just as an example of what the Galapagos can be like - on day one we awoke, came down from our cabins and stood out on the dive platform on the rear of our boat to take in the stunning view, the morning sun and shake the sleep from our eyes, when suddenly two enormous sharks emerged from under the water just a few feet away, swum around for a couple of minutes and promtly disappeared back beneath the glistening blue waves. Our guide Diego told us that we were very lucky to see them, as at the time we were anchored in fairly shallow waters and it was unusual for them to be swimming that close to shore.
All our wishes came true while we were there! We swam with sharks, sea lions, stingrays and penguins which was very cool - in fact Naomi trod on a stingray by mistake and only realised when it swam off. A lot of things just happen in ‘the moment’ and you have to be content with seeing things with your own eyes and not getting a photo; nature happens when it happens, it doesn’t stand and pose for you. For example, one afternoon whilst relaxing with a beer on deck we saw an enormous tuna fish (6 – 7 feet long) come bursting out of the water into the air, it arced over and splashed back down into the ocean and vanished. The whole event lasted maybe three seconds but it was an awesome site to see.
Other unexpected sitings included flying fish (very cool) and hammerhead sharks. But Naomi’s favourite were the dolphins – they just appear, swimming along the side of boat while it’s sailing.
Melody really loved seeing all the lizards and iguanas, and they were literally everywhere, and she wanted to stop and talk to them all (we had to stop her from picking them up and hiding them in her bag). Walking up the dock on our way to the Darwin Institute there were perhaps a hundred marine iguanas playing and taking in the sun. Just like all the wildlife on Galapagos, they aren’t bothered at all by human prescence.
The sea lions are also everywhere, they even sleep on the dive platform at the rear of the boat. On a visit to a sealion colony Amanda and Melody were chased out of the water and up the beach by a fiesty male who had taken a shine to them.
We had the pleasure of sharing our Galapagos adventure with our new friends – Karl, Leigh and their daughter Taylor. It made our trip extra fun and it meant that Melody had a play mate.
It was a fantastic experience, but by the end we were glad to be back on terra firma as the previous night the sea was particularly rough (an after effect of the second earthquake in Chile) which brought on a serious bout of sea sickness…we won’t go into the graphic details, but it was messy!
We took hundreds of pictures, none of them really doing justice to what we saw, but here’s a link to a selection of them.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43583549@N02/sets/72157623600887721/show/
